Bonnie Power - Take the first step

Bonnie Power

Take the first step

Bonnie is a recognised expert in Personal Branding and Lead Generation through LinkedIn. She is passionate about helping business owners to bring in a steady stream of new enquiries, particularly through LinkedIn as it offers such great opportunities with it’s global business network.Focused on getting measurable results for her clients, Bonnie’s on a mission to help 10,000 entrepreneurs build their credibility so they are seen as highly sought after within their industry. As CEO of Perfect Boom, Bonnie helps business owners build up their personal brands and leverage them to attract more clients and opportunities. Having new enquiries on tap is Bonnie’s idea of heaven … and so that’s what she works towards achieving for her clients.With 10 years of experience in building up personal brands of CEOs and Senior Executives whilst running a successful online business Bonnie is a well known expert in this space.Bonnie is living proof that you can live life on your own terms – a great life and a great business that helps produce results for great clients.

Who ever said you can’t have your cake and eat it too, wasn’t hungry enough.

— Bonnie Power

Show Notes

Her Story – Bonnie Power

My story started back when I was 27 years old, faced with the decision of what I was going to do with the rest of my life. I knew I wanted to have children and that I was ready to move into the ‘adult’ phase of my life. However, I didn’t want to be a stay at home mother, I wanted to keep bringing in an income and to keep my business brain active. I decided to plan and map out what a perfect day would look like to me, the type of clients that I would be working with and the sorts of skills that I would be able to offer those clients. The criteria included that I be able to work from home, that I didn’t need to travel too far and that I could speak to clients on my terms and not just whenever they rang.

I had never been content working for large corporations, I didn’t fit in with the structure and the rules. Instead I wanted to do things my own way, I struggled with the bureaucracy and working under the rules of another person. I believe in doing things the most efficient way possible whilst achieving the best result, not just doing things the way that they have always been done.

I had known for a long time that I wanted to start my own business but I had no idea what that business would do or what it would look like, the details of it just seemed to fall into place. You are always evolving and developing, always chasing the next big dream. A lot of people stop, they don’t pursue their dream because they cannot clearly articulate what that dream is. This is the biggest mistake, instead people should on a daily basis be taking small steps towards achieving what they feel they want to achieve, the more steps you take the clearer these finer details then become. There is a proverb about a man walking up a tall lighthouse, around the spiral staircase. For light they only have a candle, they have an idea of where they are headed but cannot clearly see what is in front of them. They know with each step they take they are closer to reaching the top, the first step becomes clear because of the glow of the candle and with each step they take the next step appears in the candle light.

I had been working in HR as a recruitment consultant, an area which at the time had a reputation for being callous and for putting people into any position to earn commissions. That wasn’t what I wanted to do, my heart was with the candidates and making sure that they were doing the right thing in their career, not just filling the positions our clients had open. The whole industry went against my values as there was pressure from my superiors to push people into roles in order to keep our clients happy, regardless of whether it was in the interest of the candidates or not. I then considered being a career coach, not really understanding the details of the role. I went out and studied career consulting, I started a website so that I could work from home, offering people coaching for job interviews and assistance with resume writing.

Prior to working in HR, I had been an adult learning teacher so whilst starting up my own business I was working part-time teaching at a TAFE. I enjoyed teaching but didn’t feel fulfilled, there was still bureaucracy and regulations preventing me from providing the quality of education I knew I otherwise could. Once the website was up and running, I filled it with useful content and laid out all the information I could, then providing contact details for those seeking further assistance. It took 3 months before I received my first enquiry.

Fast forward 9 years later, it has become a great business. I have continuously studied and worked on improving it, I now have 9 writers. From the list of products I was offering to begin with, resume writing was clearly bringing in the most business with almost 9 in 10 enquiries relating to resume writing. When you are looking at starting your own business, have a list of products and services that you can offer as you do not know which one your market will really want. Sometimes you will think your market is X, Y and Z, I started off writing resumes for mothers returning to work, when really it is A, B, and C, for us it ended up being middle management to CEOs. We then focused on resume writing, ensuring that we are the best in this one area.

Resume Writing

The best resumes will be targeted to the types of jobs that you want, if you are wanting to step up or into a more specialised position, have a look on job boards such as Seek, print off 5 job ads that you would love to do and identify the key words that they are using. If you have 80% of the skills that they are looking for, then you should apply for it.

Focus the resume and everything you talk about in the resume to proving that you have demonstrable success in those reoccurring skill sets and themes. When the reader looks at it, they will see you have all of the key skills and the proof of that capability. Talk about the projects you have worked on, the scope and size of the project and how it evidences that skill set.

For a worker with 10 years’ experience, the resume should be 3 pages in length. If you have 15 years or more of experience, no more than 4 pages. You should provide greater detail and specifics of your last two positions as these are your most recent, and the average time spent in the same position now is 3 years which is only decreasing. There are plenty of examples on our website melbourneresumes.com.au.

The changing workforce

Most people are now only spending between 18 months to 3 years in the same role, because the way the world works is changing to quickly, big corporations are now more reluctant to hire large numbers of people and are instead hiring people on contracts. The Australian employment market is only getting harder and what it means is that throughout your whole career you need to be mindful of where you want to get in 5 or 10 years’ time. You might not know the goal and the goal can change, but if you can identify areas to specialise in and to work on, you then become increasingly valuable to all the employers that you work with over the years. You will be able to carve out a good reputation for being an expert in certain areas and you will be known for having specific skill sets. When you start your own business, you become responsible for building up your own skill sets and for developing, promoting, and positioning yourself in the market. This is where LinkedIn can really help, a strong profile shows in your summary the skill sets that you have, the type of clients that you like to work with and what you have to offer them. Your employment section then talks about your achievements, includes testimonials and as many recommendations you can get from clients or colleagues, you should have at least three recommendations for each term of employment. In having a good profile, people can search for you and you are able to be approached for jobs that aren’t even advertised on Seek.

A lot of people are now setting themselves up for the future by having a cushy job with a large corporation whilst running their own small business or project on the side, usually consultancy types of services where they can build up their own personal brand and develop their networks for their next step.

The impact of LinkedIn on resume writing

For midlevel managers, specialists, and senior management we offer a LinkedIn profile with our resumes and this is something that we have been doing for the last five years, now it is almost mandatory with our packages. Any white-collar worker needs a professional profile as the first thing hirers now do after looking at your resume, is Google your name to see what comes up. They will look at the images from Facebook and then look at your LinkedIn profile which allows you to reflect your personality through its more conversationalist style than a resume does. There is even an art to choosing the right profile picture. The most important thing is the feeling that someone gets when they look at your photo, for example if you are fake smiling for a photographer you are going to generate a different feeling from a natural photo taken by your partner. Some of the best photos are those taken by family members, when you do have a genuine and warm smile as opposed to the stiff forced smile.

Advice to myself

I would tell myself you can be whatever you want to be, you just need to set your mind to it and go for it. In saying that, you don’t need to know exactly what it looks like, just start moving in the direction, don’t procrastinate. If I was 27 years old today, I would be saying to myself get a great network of people where the people are looking out for your next gig and utilise social media, to show the world what you have got to offer.

Successful Habits

When I decided to get serious, I stopped drinking red wine with dinner every night and now instead of drinking it five nights a week I only drink it three. My head needed to be super clear, I had started to go to the gym to have my body in peak condition so that I could be a high performer in my business because it is all related. I get up at 4.30 am every morning, because I have young kids I find that I need to get the big things done firs for the day so if all else fails I have at least done my big thing for the day. For years, I had been hearing about all these successful people getting up at 4.30am and had thought how can you get up at 4.30, but when you start doing it you actually feel great and you can get so much more done.

Inspirational quote

I hate the quote ‘you can’t have your cake and eat it too’, so I have made my own version ‘whoever said you can’t have your cake and eat it too, wasn’t hungry enough’. You can, you just have to organise your life to fill it with what is important to you. Write down your criteria for each day and you can achieve it.

Recommended Reading

If the listeners are interested in aspiring to be awesome and to achieve great things, then you will probably have a million things on your to-do-list and you will probably have a sense of being overwhelmed. One of the best books I have read to address this is called The One Thing, it only takes a couple of hours to read and it makes your brain go back to focusing on your objective and your goal for the day or the week. It then focuses on what the one thing is that you could do for the day that would be the most effective towards achieving your goal. It is the one thing you can do this hour, this day, this week.

Contact details

My ideal client for Melbourne Resumes is one who is motivated to go to that next stage in their career, high calibre people who need a resume. Our website is mebourneresumes.co.au, there are templates on the site that you can have a look at but if you are after professional advice, there is a quote button you can click on to seek feedback on your current resume. Providing you with what your current resume is doing well, as well as where it is lacking and a quote for us to improve it for you.